In the garden, and RAIN!!!!
POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Thursday, December 25, 2025 04:27
VIEWED: 1005090
PAGE 281 of 1154
Yesterday was another gross day, but I got a lot accomplished and it's starting to get less gross. Today will be the third day in a row I haven't even bothered to wash my work jeans because they're just going to immediately be covered in mud again.
I got a lot more of the crawlspace graded, and I pulled enough pavers from up top to make 3 1/2 rows of them along the wall on the south end.
I stopped that work momentarily to decide if I still needed to jack up the porch on the side I hadn't worked on yet. To my surprise, everything over there is more or less fine, and I was able to "persuade" four 4 foot lengths of 2x8 to double up on the joists on that end. They really don't need it, but since I have the wood and the floor is still open I figured why not. The sill isn't great, but it's not terrible either. If I can keep water from leaking on that end and keep the ants away, it shouldn't be a problem.
So...
Glad I'm pulling those pavers up. I hope I can find some old pictures that would tell me the story of how low the siding was to them when I initially bought the house. They were only about 1/4 to 1/2 below the siding now, but because of the ants and the moles the dirt and sand have built up all along the ends of the shed and the garage and whenever it gets wet it's getting inside and making the plates on the floor wet too. Most of it is fine still and I'm catching it in time, but there are a few I'd like to figure out how to either replace or strengthen with additional boards.
I'm also going to do a bit more research and see if I can rent a tool from Home Depot that would allow me to do "mudjacking" (I believe that's the term for what I want to do). It involves drilling 2" holes into the concrete at strategic places so you can pump a mixture underneath that will actually raise the slab. If I could raise the slab of my shed at the end of the porch properly (but not too much!), it should mitigate a lot of potential problems in the porch and shed that I forsee down the road.
My initial plan was to put decorative rocks or at least gravel down for the patio between the garage and the porch. That's still the plan, but I wanted it all to be quite a bit lower than the height of the pavers are now. But when looking at everything yesterday that would be a problem. The patio would end up being a pool in heavy rains. Both the driveway on one end and the grass in the back yard would be higher than the patio. Even with gutters up that would be a problem if I can't get the gravel to more or less the same height as the pavers were now.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Rain here today. Mah jong then work. Boss and her husband suppose to be taking me out for a late birthday supper. We shall see.
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Rain and a heavy hail storm that arrived around 4:30 or so.
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Didn't get anything done on the job yesterday. Needed to take a break from going down there again. The bruise from the fall is still pretty bad, and the cold weather setting in is not doing the general aches and pains from all that awkward positioning any favors either.
That being said... summer is officially over around here. I better get to it.
Really hoping I can get my friend back out for one day before the floor is in to look at things and give me his feedback about how to proceed. Because of the wonky design of this entire add-on, if I make the necessary changes to complete the floor now, that will preclude me from being able to jack up the foundation of the shed on the end at a later date because the construction will have been altered so much that it would ruin the floor of the porch to jack it up after the fact.
I hope I can at least finish re-grading the floor and getting a bulk of the patio pavers down below today. The visqueen came and is ready to rock when I am.
How was the dinner Brenda? Not too awkward, I hope. 
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How was the dinner Brenda? Not too awkward, I hope.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Well, first they cancelled dinner because the other person couldn't make it and we were suppose to go out Sunday night. They drove me back home because we had a massive hail storm while I was working. I had just sat down to watch the news when I get a phone call saying that we could still go out last night or leave it till Sunday, my choice. I said might as well go out.
Anyways I walked up to the restaurant missing them coming by my apartment to pick me up. They got to the restaurant a few minutes after me. No big deal. We had a small laugh over that.
So not too awkward. Except the wife decided to give our server a religious pamphlet. I felt sorry for the kid but I couldn't say anything. They know how I feel about it. That just embarrassed me.
There was some other stuff that happened yesterday that just showed my boss' racist flag showing and a bit on her husband.
If I hadn't said it before I feel bad for their daughter-in-law.
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Soggy again but I got some stuff to do. So later peeps.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How was the dinner Brenda? Not too awkward, I hope.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Well, first they cancelled dinner because the other person couldn't make it and we were suppose to go out Sunday night. They drove me back home because we had a massive hail storm while I was working. I had just sat down to watch the news when I get a phone call saying that we could still go out last night or leave it till Sunday, my choice. I said might as well go out.
Anyways I walked up to the restaurant missing them coming by my apartment to pick me up. They got to the restaurant a few minutes after me. No big deal. We had a small laugh over that.
So not too awkward. Except the wife decided to give our server a religious pamphlet. I felt sorry for the kid but I couldn't say anything. They know how I feel about it. That just embarrassed me.
There was some other stuff that happened yesterday that just showed my boss' racist flag showing and a bit on her husband.
If I hadn't said it before I feel bad for their daughter-in-law.
I'm sure she's fine. Show me somebody who isn't regularly embarrassed by their parents and I'll show you a liar.
Glad the dinner went well outside of the religious shilling. Price for a free meal, I guess.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Got a late start today because it was so freakin' cold. Wasn't sure that I'd do anything today, but I pushed through the urge not to and ended up getting a ton done.
Crawl is completely graded now, and about 60% filled with the pavers. What a chore to crab walk from one side to the other with them over the mud, but so worth it when it's done. Was able to take a break after doing around 12 at a time by just sitting down on the dry pavers before going back up and getting more.
Taking longer than I expected because everything is more or less wet up top too with the rain we've had the last week or so. Would have definately been easier to clean them off when they were dry, but oh well. Need to make sure I'm not taking any ants down with me.
Had my awesome spray bottle with me and soaked any colonies I saw along the way, and at the end of the day dumped another full 2 gallons of poison around all of the stuff that's exposed now.
Now that I'm seeing how much is filled down below and what remains on top, I'm thinking I'll easily have enough to put a second layer of pavers down there. I may very well choose to do that before putting the visqueen down instead of spending the next 6 months slowly salting those heavy things out with the trash.
I think I'm going to skip putting up any pylons. That floor is rock solid right now. Easily supported me and my brother last week and I probably could put about 40 of the heavy pavers on it without it moving even though I chose to only do about a dozen at a time. The only reason a pylon would be needed is if everything starts rotting out again, and I think with the work I'm doing that's not going to happen for at least 20 years.
The weathermen say tomorrow and the following week are going to be nice and warm again. Going to eat early and hopefully get a good night's sleep and start earlier tomorrow. Maybe I can have all the pavers up tomorrow and finally be done with it.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How was the dinner Brenda? Not too awkward, I hope.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
Well, first they cancelled dinner because the other person couldn't make it and we were suppose to go out Sunday night. They drove me back home because we had a massive hail storm while I was working. I had just sat down to watch the news when I get a phone call saying that we could still go out last night or leave it till Sunday, my choice. I said might as well go out.
Anyways I walked up to the restaurant missing them coming by my apartment to pick me up. They got to the restaurant a few minutes after me. No big deal. We had a small laugh over that.
So not too awkward. Except the wife decided to give our server a religious pamphlet. I felt sorry for the kid but I couldn't say anything. They know how I feel about it. That just embarrassed me.
There was some other stuff that happened yesterday that just showed my boss' racist flag showing and a bit on her husband.
If I hadn't said it before I feel bad for their daughter-in-law.
I'm sure she's fine. Show me somebody who isn't regularly embarrassed by their parents and I'll show you a liar.
Glad the dinner went well outside of the religious shilling. Price for a free meal, I guess.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
That's something they are not my parents. Just some people that I know.
Yeah and something I didn't know was going to happen.
Their daughter-in-law is Thai.
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Off in a bit. Going to meet a friend and her mom for a late birthday lunch. :) So we will be switching things. I've got some books that I promised her for her mum and found some stuff that I am giving to my friend's daughter.
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